Janet Atwell and Reid Vance
Financial arrangements between players who opt out of a final match to determine a winner are rare in competition where thousands of dollars are at stake between, as an example, 1st and 2nd place. A ‘split’ is more common in regional tours and tournaments or local independent events, where the cash difference between 1st and 2nd place, divided by two, at 2 a.m. in the morning can seem insignificant to competitors who would, among other things, just as soon get back on the road to home, which can often take hours, than play a match when they’re already exhausted.
According to PremierBilliards.com’s Q City 9-Ball tour director Herman Parker, this past weekend’s (Sat., March 25) finalists at a stop on his tour, Janet Atwell and Reid Vance, chose to split primarily because while they did both have considerable distances to drive to get back to their homes, they were also friends.
“They’re great friends,” said Parker. “They compete against each other regularly at Janet’s room (Borderline Billiards in Bristol, TN) and practice together all the time in the area.”
In opting for their split, Atwell and Vance allowed their hot seat match to define the winner. As the undefeated occupant of the hot seat when they did split, Atwell became the official winner of the $500-added event that drew 30 entrants to Breaker’s Billiards and Brews in Mosheim, TN.
Atwell and Vance worked their way through the field to arrive at their separate winners’ side semifinal matches; Atwell versus Brady Brazell and Vance facing 13-year-old junior competitor, Gage Smith. Vance shut the youngster out, while Atwell was in the midst of surviving a double hill battle against Brazell. She did and then, survived a second straight double-hill match, against Vance, to claim the hot seat.
On the loss side, Brazell and Smith got right back to work. Brazell had picked up John Brockman, who’d defeated Everett Anderson 6-2 and shut out Bucky Smith to reach him. Gage Smith drew Danny Demetro, who arrived having recently shut out two straight opponents, Andy Ashburn and Keith Roberts.
Brazell knocked Brockman out of the running with a 7-3 win. The youngster (Gage Smith) stopped Demetro’s two-shutout, loss-side streak by battling him to double hill before dropping the last 9-ball.
Brazell then added to the event’s already prodigious list of shutouts by adding another to defeat Smith in the quarterfinals. Brazell and Vance duked it out in the semifinals, battling to double hill before Vance closed it out to win 8-6 (Brazell racing to 7).
Vance and Atwell may have glanced at their watches, before looking at each other with a smile and opted out of the final. Atwell went into the ‘books’ as the event’s official winner.
Tour director Herman Parker thanked Terry Greer and his Breaker Billiards’ staff for their hospitality, as well as title sponsor PremierBilliards.com, BarPoolTables.net, Dirty South Grind Apparel Co., Realty One Group Results, Diamond Brat, AZBilliards.com, Federal Savings Bank Mortgage Division and TKO Custom Cues. The next stop on the Q City 9-Ball Tour, scheduled for April 1-2, will be a $500-added event, hosted by Action Billiards in Inman, SC.
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